May 7, 2008

• We
  sing a song at church called "Be Not Afraid," written by John Michael
  Talbot, our neighbor over at Little Portion Hermitage near Eureka.
  Every time I hear the music and the words, they speak to me. You know,
  the kind of song that brings tears to your eyes because it strikes a
  chord way down deep inside.
  "Be not afraid. I go before you always. Come, follow Me, and I will give you rest...."
  Maybe this resonates so strongly with me because all my life I've struggled with fear.
  I
  know the exact day when fear really got ahold of me. My boys were about
  two and four, and we were living out in the country on their daddy's
  family farm. It was a Sunday afternoon, and both my little boys were
  taking their afternoon nap. I’d had a sick headache all day, and
  decided to take an over-the-counter headache pill and lie down.
  I
  dozed off, but within minutes woke up because the palms of my hands
  were itching like mosquitoes had bitten them. Then I started having
  trouble breathing, and realized I was having some kind of severe
  allergic reaction — something that had never happened to me before, but
  that I'd read about. I ran into the kitchen and saw a big bottle of
  liquid Benadryl sitting there, a prescription the doctor had given my
  baby after he’d played in a sandbox full of fire ants.
  I
  grabbed the bottle and ran next door to my in-laws' house, where I
  slugged off several big swallows of the antihistamine. My mother-in-law
  sent her husband to go bring the car around to the front, and she
  called the emergency room at our little hospital, 10 miles away, to
  tell them we were on the way.
  I walked toward the front
  door of their big farmhouse, feeling weaker and weaker, then everything
  started to get black, just like when you'd turn a 1950s television off.
  My father-in-law told me later that as he walked up the front sidewalk,
  I said to him, "A.B., I'm dying," and then crumpled to the ground. He'd
  been an Army medic in World War II, and he said he was sure I was dead.
  But
  within minutes, I started to come to, hearing my mother-in-law's voice
  crying over my head: "Lord Jesus, please don't let her die! She has two
  little babies!"
  They somehow got me into the car, and
  A.B. drove me to the hospital. I continued to improve on the way, and
  was soon fine. My doctor told me I'd probably saved my life by drinking
  that liquid Benadryl. He explained I'd had an anaphylactic reaction to
  the headache medicine, the same kind of reaction some people have to
  bee stings — one that can kill you very quickly.
  The fear
  didn't invade me until a day later, when my aunt from Memphis called me
  and told me her doctor husband was very worried about me and he wanted
  me to see an allergist to find out exactly what component of the
  headache pill I had been allergic to. "John said you need to know that
  reaction was very serious, Celia, and it's possible that if you have
  another one, it could kill you."
  I was standing in my
  tiny kitchen, holding the phone to my ear, and I promise you, I can
  still remember feeling the physical feeling of the fear entering my
  body. It felt like icy water running through an IV into my veins. And
  even after battling it for 25 years, I've never completely gotten over
  it.
  Right at that moment, I developed a true phobia
  about taking medicine. Because the specialist was not able to pinpoint
  what it was I had been allergic to, I refused to take even a single
  aspirin or Tylenol for about 10 years, because I was so terrified of
  having another allergic reaction.
   And, as phobias do,
  that fear grew, and I developed other ones, mainly claustrophobia that
  manifests itself in a variety of ways — I hate elevators, and I can't
  stand to be in any enclosed, stuffy spaces, especially when I know I'm
  not in control of when the door opens. Like being on an airplane, of
  which I am really, really afraid. I know it doesn't make sense, but
  that's how fear is — totally irrational. Logic has nothing to do with
  it.
  Over the years, I've overcome some of this fear.
  I've memorized Bible verses to help me when I'm struggling. "Fear not,
  for I am with you. Be not afraid, for I am thy God" is one of my
  mantras. Prayer, especially the Rosary, helps a lot.
   Now,
  I can take aspirin and other medicines that I have to take, but when I
  have to take something new, I have to fight panic. I can ride an
  elevator, but I’m never comfortable. And I have flown when I just
  couldn't avoid it. Fear has been pushed back, but not overcome.
  I
  don't tell you all this because I'm proud of it. I hate my fear, and
  I'm ashamed of it. I don't want my life to be limited by it. I want to
  be free to get on an elevator without my heart pounding. I'd like to be
  able to get on a plane and fly to Colorado to see my son Alex, or to
  Virginia to see my sister Cissy, or to the British Isles with Doyle.
  But my fear keeps me from doing those things.
  I’m
  struggling to really take to heart the words — "Be not afraid....I go
  before you always" — so that I can walk out into a wider place in my
  life that's not fenced in by fear.
  
  By Celia DeWoody
  Copyright Harrison (Ark.) Daily Times 2008
  Published May 7, 2008
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  • 9:32 pm
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